At bottom, neither the good fishing nor the illness of ancient Mrs. Pritchard had been the real cause of Dafydd Dafis's procrastination in the matter of the match-boarding--any more than those greased cartridges were the real cause of the Mutiny. He was merely vindicating the claims of a temperament that kept him, and would always keep him, poor, yet a power. He was a day-labourer, whom anybody could hire to build a wall, mend a thatch or caulk a boat; but--and this was the secret of his influence--he had a harp in his cottage. In a glorious baritone voice he sang _Mentra Gwen_, _Y Deryn Pur_, and lorn songs of love and wild songs of battle. More than that, he sang _penillion_; and as _penillion_--which is an extempore form of song into which you may plunge at any point you please, provided you finish pat and triumphant with the double bar--as _penillion_ concerns itself mainly with two themes, namely, the loved mountains and lakes of Cambria, and quick and topical inventions of personal gossip, Dafydd Dafis held his hearers both by their deeper sentiments and their lighter foibles. He was a spare and roughly clad man of thirty, unmarried, with a kindling eye, a handsome nose, and a ragged dark moustache; and when his head was bowed by the side of his harp, all the life of him seemed to run out into the lean and roughened fingers on the strings. He came to see Edward Garden about that match-boarding on the Saturday morning, bringing a youth of eighteen with him. Edward Garden, who had had experience of the Welsh in Liverpool, which is the capital of Wales, received him with resignation. Fair and softly goes far in a day, and he knew that the luxury of chiding the bard of Llanyglo would prove a dear one did Mrs. Garden find her egg supply suddenly fail and the Llanyglo cows mysteriously cease to yield milk. His forbearance was rewarded. Before he departed for Manchester on the Monday morning he had the satisfaction of seeing Dafydd Dafis and the youth actually begin the job. No doubt it would be finished by the time divinely appointed for its finishing. But whether Dafydd Dafis sang much as he worked, or worked a little as he sang, remained an open question.